Commentary: Want a Miracle? Try a Kind Word

By Linda Hart Green

I got caught in the rain. It was sunny when I went into the store and pouring rain when I came out. I dashed to the car, but I got soaked. I dried myself off with a napkin from the glove compartment. It was the best I could do. Since the rain abated as quickly as it arrived, I went ahead with my errands. I ducked my wet head as I entered the grocery, hoping not to see anyone I knew. I raced to pick up what I needed. In the checkout line, the cheerful young cashier looked at me and asked, “How is your day?” Stating the obvious, I said, “Well, I got caught in the rain.”  He smiled and sang, “Down came the rain and washed the spider out.” Surprised and amused, I replied (with hand gestures), “Out came the sun and dried up all the rain.” And we both sang, “And the itsy bitsy spider climbed up the spout again!”  I was still bedraggled as I left the store, but I had a smile on my face and a song in my mind. Words matter! He could have given me a cynical look like we have come to expect from his generation.  He could have made a snide comment. Instead, he transformed my mood with words from a childhood song and a playful attitude.

Words spoken from anger, heartlessness or carelessness stay with all of us. We can recount the date, time and place they were spoken to us years later. Our own experiences are still not enough to guide the words we use. Some say that choosing words so carefully is too” politically correct.” If our words wound others, shouldn’t we make an effort to change them? The freedom to press “send” has caused so much trouble. We say things in writing we would not have the courage to say face-to-face. Name-calling and using every vile descriptor in a thesaurus is not a sign of intelligence nor should it be acceptable in civil society.

Words matter! Theologian and author Frederick Buechner says, “A word doesn’t merely say something, it does something. It brings something into being. It makes something happen.” Another author and theologian I deeply appreciate is Barbara Brown Taylor. In her book of essays on science and religion entitled, “The Luminous Web,”  she writes, “We belong to a web of creation in which nothing, absolutely nothing, is inconsequential. Everything has an impact on the unfolding of the universe.”

If we want the world to be less strife-ridden and conflict-torn, we can contribute good energy to the process of transformation with our words. All we have to do is ask ourselves every day,”Do my words reflect an intention to love my neighbor as myself?” Even the smallest kind word can make a difference beyond what we will ever know, like it did for me in the grocery store.